Missing Pages

One of the funniest episodes of the old TV series MASH was when the characters were passing around a mystery novel during a particularly boring lull in the war. Unfortunately, to their dismay, they discovered that the last page was missing from the novel. The last page told who did it. They spend the whole episode trying to figure out who the murderer is while trying to find someone Stateside who can complete the story.

In my last post, I suggested that Scripture could be seen as an incomplete musical score. Leonard Sweet has suggested that the Bible is really something like an incomplete book or six act play. However, unlike the MASH episode it is not the end we are missing but the middle. The ending is certain.

Act One is the creation.
Act Two is human rebellion against God.
Act Three is God’s creation of a holy people through Abraham as his witness in the world.
Act Four is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Act Five, Scene One, is the Acts of the Early Church.
Act Five, Scene Two is being written right now.
Act Six is not written but we have enough notes.

The author of the story invites us into co-authorship. As we come fully into relationship with the author we are able to think his thoughts after him. To the degree we come to have the mind of author, we contribute to the final plot of the story. To the degree that we don’t have the mind of the author, we merely write superfluous subplots of no lasting significance.

I love the idea that God invites each one of us to participate with him in the unfolding story he is writing in history. But there is yet one more metaphor I want to share.

(BTW, Brian McLaren uses some of this kind of thinking in his “The Story We find Ourselves In.” He list seven episodes “Creation, Crisis, Calling, Conversation, Christ, Church, and Consummation. It is the second of his New Kind of Christian trilogy which I have really enjoyed.)